Disaster Survivor Recovery Accelerator Amendment
An amendment to H.R. 4669 (the FEMA Act of 2025) — house survivors in days, rebuild in weeks, and cut federal duplication.
Survivors are forced to quarterback FEMA, SBA, NFIP, private insurers, mortgage servicers, code officials, contractors, and permitting offices — while they're displaced from their own homes. Substantial-damage determinations trigger federal elevation or rebuild requirements that exceed existing code-compliance coverage, pushing families into debt, delay, or abandonment. FEMA is still managing 600+ open major disaster declarations, some nearly 20 years old.
Recovery should be survivor-first and taxpayer-protected. Insurers should be accountable recovery operators — not blank-check counterparties — and no American should take on debt for code compliance the federal government required them to do.
A performance-based recovery partnership. Qualified insurers and NFIP carriers receive federally backed liquidity only when they meet strict survivor-service standards: emergency lodging within 24 hours, a written temporary-housing plan within 48 hours, a designated Recovery Coordinator of Record, transparent contractor pricing, claim-level ledgers, FEMA AI-assisted auditing, and full anti-fraud and congressional-oversight compliance. Federally required code-compliance upgrades after a substantial-damage determination are covered — never added to a survivor's debt load.
Co-sponsorship of the Disaster Survivor Recovery Accelerator Amendment to H.R. 4669, plus committee discussion and feedback.
Section by section
Plain-language summary of the draft. Full text is in the PDF.
Establishes the Disaster Survivor Recovery Accelerator Amendment to the FEMA Act of 2025 (H.R. 4669) with the stated purpose of housing survivors in days and rebuilding homes in weeks.
Sets the 24-hour emergency lodging and 48-hour written temporary-housing plan as conditions for any participating insurer or NFIP carrier to receive federal liquidity.
Designates one accountable point of contact per household — typically the insurer of record — responsible for coordinating FEMA, SBA, NFIP, mortgage, code, and contractor workflows on behalf of the survivor.
Federally required elevation, rebuild, and code-compliance costs triggered by a substantial-damage determination are covered through the accelerator — never billed back to the survivor.
Standardized, published contractor unit pricing for participating carriers, with audit rights and anti-collusion provisions.
Authorizes FEMA to deploy AI tooling for claim-level ledger review, duplication detection, and anomaly scoring across federal recovery programs.
A standing liquidity facility for qualified carriers, conditional on compliance with survivor-service standards and ledger transparency requirements.
Mandatory clawback of federal liquidity from carriers found in material non-compliance, with civil penalties and disqualification timelines.
Quarterly reporting to House and Senate oversight committees with public dashboards on housing timeliness, claim closeout, and program cost.
Independent ombudsman with binding authority to resolve survivor disputes inside fixed timelines.
Premium and deductible credits for pre-disaster mitigation investments (elevation, hardening, defensible space) verified by certified inspectors.
Standardized data-sharing and permitting fast-tracks with participating states, tribes, and localities.
Survivor data minimization, encryption-at-rest requirements, and limits on secondary use by participating carriers.
Phased rollout with a mandatory program review and reauthorization vote at year five.
FAQ
Common questions and objections — answered directly.
This document is a constituent-authored policy proposal for congressional discussion. It is not an official publication of Congress, FEMA, DHS, the White House, or any federal commemorative entity, and it does not imply government endorsement.
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